Arutam

Arutam is a Holy Spirit of the Shuar in Ecuador which is is all-powerful and can transform into any kind of different form. Arutam is the holy power of the Shuar and it is the hope for the Shuar. In their culture, to encounter Arutam, they have to choose it. When you’re living in the jungle together with nature, at any moment there could be an enormous, powerful storm. This kind of storm can be like a hurricane. At this moment, a father can say to his son, “Today is your day.” Of course, in this monstrous, strong storm, a child would be afraid. The child needs to take his spear and go into the jungle in the middle of this powerful storm. The boy has to walk into the jungle, right into the middle of the storm. As the child is searching for Arutam, he will encounter a huge monster in his path. This monster can make the entire universe dark. It is total panic. But this child cannot be afraid. One false move and he could lose this whole experience. He knows that his defense is this spear. He has to fight against this monster that has presented itself. He is there with the spear in his hand. As he inserts the spear into the monster, he speaks these Shuar words: "Chaii Apachi Iwitkata," which means, “Give me your power.” At that moment the monster disappears, and the child is in another world. He has received the power of Arutam and he is in a completely different space. In this space, the monster is not really a monster; it transforms into this beautiful image and begins to speak to the boy. It tells him, “You are a very strong boy. For this, I’m going to give you all of my power.” The monster begins to tell the boy all of the things that will happen in his future life.After the monster has spoken to him and told him all of the things he needs to tell him about what will happen in the future, it disappears. Then the child returns to this world and begins to recover his energy and returns to the house. The father is ready and waiting for the child to return to the house. The father can recognize the child from far away, but the child cannot enter the house yet. He waits outside while the father prepares the sacred plant Natem. Then, together they enter into the jungle and go to a sacred place called Ayamtai. He gives his son the sacred plant, and when the plant takes effect, the Holy Spirit, Arutam, presents himself to the boy to continue telling him what is going to happen in the future. After this, the child will have a long life.

Yuwipi

Yuwipi is the present-day Oglala Sioux version of an ancient and widespread ritual in which a shaman is bound and, in the darkness, call spirits to come and free him and to communicate with his audience.

Indigenous religions

There are thousands of Indigenous cultures around the world, and each has its own distinct understanding of spirituality and spiritual practices. Unlike many non-Indigenous cultures, Native spirituality is not a discrete part of life, but is integrated with the culture as a whole, with nature, and with generations gone by. Each issue of Cultural Survival Quarterly magazine features an article by an Indigenous shaman, healer, or other spiritual leader, discussing his worldview and his people’s religious practices.

Agnosticism

Agnosticism is a belief that we cannot prove either the existence or the non-existence of deity. Many Agnostics believe that we cannot know anything about a deity at the present time, but that this could conceivably change in the future.

There is a general consensus that:

A person who believes in a specific God, Goddess or combination of deities is a Theist.

A person who actively denies the existence of any and all deities is an Atheist.

A person who feels that we have no method by which we can conclude whether a deity exists is an Agnostic.

Agnosticism is a belief related to the existence or non-existence of God. An Agnostic is a person who feels that God's existence can neither be proved nor disproved, on the basis of current evidence. Agnostics note that theologians and philosophers have tried to to prove, for thousands of years that either God exists or that God does not exist. It is ironic that agnostics place their faith in a belief which they cannot prove, which is the basis for faith or religion.

Are they Theists? No, because Agnostics do not believe in a God.
However, some Agnostics consider themselves to be Atheists. That is because the term "Atheist" has two meanings:

A person who positively believes that no God exists.

A person who has no belief in a God. Just as a newborn has no concept of a deity, some adults also have no such belief. The term "Atheist" is derived from the Greek words "a" which means "without" and "Theos" which means "God." A person can be a non-theist by simply lacking a belief in God without actively denying God's existence.

Some Agnostics feel that their beliefs match the second definition, and thus consider themselves to be both Atheist and an Agnostic.

An Agnostic usually holds the question of the existence of God open, pending the arrival of more evidence. They are willing to change their belief if some solid evidence or logical proof is found in the future. However, some have taken the position that there is no logical way in which the existence or the non-existence of a deity can be proven.

Atheism

Atheism is a complex term to define, and many definitions fail to capture the range of positions an atheist can hold. Perhaps the most obvious meaning to many people now is the absence or rejection of a belief in a God, or gods. However, it has been used through much of history to denote certain beliefs seen as heretical, particularly the belief that God does not intervene in the world. More recently, atheists have argued that atheism only denotes a lack of theistic belief, rather than the active denial or claims of certainty it is often associated with. This is held to follow from its etymology: it stems from the Greek adjective atheos, deriving from the alpha privative a -,'without, not', and 'theos', 'God'. It is not clear, however, that this could not equally mean 'godless' in the earlier sense as meaning a heretical or immoral person.

The exact meaning of 'atheist' varies between thinkers, and caution must always be shown to make sure that discussions of atheism are not working at cross purposes. Michael Martin, a leading atheist philosopher, defines atheism entirely in terms of belief.[1] For him, negative atheism is simply the lack of theistic belief, positive atheism is the asserted disbelief in God, and agnosticism is the lack of either belief or disbelief in God. This suggests that negative atheism, the minimal position that all atheists share, divides neatly into agnosticism and positive atheism. It is worth noting that the 'positive atheist' need not have certainty that God doesn't exist: it is a matter of belief, not knowledge.

Mayan religion

Renowned for their pyramidal structures, their arts, and their mathematical system, the Maya of ancient times, located in what is now southern Mexico and Central America, operated under a complex theocracy that, like that of the Aztecs, emphasized calendar-making. The zenith of the agriculturally centered Mayan civilization, one of the most important pre-Columbian peoples, occurred between 300 and 900 C.E. The reason for the gradual depopulation of their great cities between 900 and 1100 C.E. has been a subject of continuing debate.

At its height, the Mayan civilization appears to have operated not under a single ruler, but as a loosely organized gathering of semi-autonomous cities and villages. These units seem to have emphasized kinship and genealogy as important social and religious factors. Ties to the earth were always vitally important. Advances in agricultural techniques supported population growth in the ancient Mayan culture—and, by extension, the accompanying breakthroughs in mathematics, calendar-making, architecture, and the arts for which the old civilization is best known today.
In ancient times, before there were people, the gods Tepeu and Gucumatz reigned. If they thought something, it came into existence. When they thought about the earth, it was born. When they thought about trees, or mountains, or any other feature of the landscape, it came forth. The moment they thought about animals, the animals were there.

Tepeu and Gucumatz soon realized, though, that something important was missing. Nothing that they had created was capable of praising them. And so they decided to create people. The first people were made of clay—but the gods found that these dissolved when they got wet. The next people were fashioned from wood, but they were troublemakers, and so the gods sent a flood to rectify their mistake and start anew. Finally the gods appealed to the mountain lion, the coyote, the parrot, and the crow to help them find the right material from which to build superior beings. The animals found corn, and it was from corn that the gods created the Four Fathers from which all humanity traces its lineage Among the most important points to remember about the ancient religious practices of the Maya are the following:
•The Maya placed a high degree of faith in the ability of the gods to control and order events and human undertakings within specific time periods.
•Nature, time, and agriculture were preoccupations of religious life—and, indeed, of life as a whole—in Mayan society.
•Like the religion of the Aztec peoples of central Mexico, Mayan religion incorporated elements of human sacrifice to appease key gods.
•Among the many other important deities were Kinich Ahau, the sun god; Chaac, the rain god; and the Maize god, strongly associated with the central obsession of the culture as a whole—ripened and healthy corn.
•Mayan mythology postulated four brother-gods who held up the sky. Each presided over a four-year span of time and represented one of the four directions. Colors associated with each of these deities were essential to Mayan religious and calendar-making practices.
•Current scholarship suggests that ancestor worship was an important part of life in ancient Mayan civilizations.

Although descendants of the ancient Mayans are alive and well in the region and modest rural settlements have characterized the region for centuries, Roman Catholicism has been the dominant religion since the Spanish conquest of the 1500s. However, many original Mayan traditions (including native religious practices) have been intertwined with their European counterparts.

Mandaeism

The Mandaeans (literally, "the knowers") are the only surviving Gnostics from the time of late Antiquity. They have dwelled for the past eighteen hundred years in southern Iraq and southwest Iran, and increasingly, as a result of recent wars, in other parts of the world. They adhere to the typical Gnostic doctrines and mythologies regarding the soul's entrapment in earthly life and the existence of a heavenly Lightworld, the soul's true home. Being baptists, the Mandaeans consider John the Baptist their main prophet and renewer of the religion, which, they say, ultimately stems from Adam himself. The Mandaeans live next to but remain apart from their (mostly Moslem) neighbors, and throughout the centries they have preserved their traditions to a remarkable degree.

The Mandaeans are not an officially recognized minority religion in Iran. The Qur'an exempts them, as a "people of the book," from forced conversion to Islam. After the revolution in 1980, however, the government stopped supporting this protection. Since then, the Mandaeans have worked to regain it. About two years ago, the Iranian President, Khamenei issued a fatwa, an opinion, about the Mandaeans, stating that they seemed to be monotheists with a holy scripture and a prophet and should therefore be recognized as a protected religion. Since the fatwa, Mandaeans have had their hopes strengthened. I visited Iran in April, 1996. On What happened to be Easter Sunday, I saw my first Mandaean baptism as I sat on the bank of the Karun, the largest river in Iran. It was brown and flowing rapidly, swollen by melted snow from the mountains. Mandaeans practice repeated baptism, and full immersion must take place in flowing, fresh water, which is the form that the Lightworld takes on earth.

The religion is related to Judaism and Christianity but retains its own separate identity. Probably during the first century, and due to the persecution by the Jews, the Mandaeans were helped by one of the Parthian Kings to find refuge in Iraq and Iran, where they still survive. The Qur'an recognizes them as a "People of the Book," (and refers to them "Sabaeans"; not related to the Sabaeans of Yemen) as the Mandaeans fulfill the requirements of having a holy religious text and a prophet. However, the actual protection of the religion during the centuries has been disputed, and the "Mandaean question" remains a difficult legal-religious question in Islam.

Because Mandaeans are the smallest group and the least known among the people of the book (i.e. Christians and Jews), it has been harder for them to protect and assert themselves as a legitimate religion. Today, the Mandaeans enjoy official protection in Iraq (though under difficult circumstances due to the international embargo and the internal unrest), while the smaller Mandaean population in Iran, mainly centered in Ahwaz, Khuzistan, has lost its recognition since the fall of Shah Reza Pahlavi. Especially following the wars and unrest beginning in 1980, Mandaeans have emigrated individually and in groups to other countries, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, and various European countries.

At less than 100.000, these sole remaining ancient Gnostics subscribe to a tempered dualism in which the heavenly, pre-existent Lightworld and its inhabitants keep in constant contact with earthly, concrete life. Through elaborate rituals such contact between the worlds ensure present and future
life. Most important is the capacity of he soul, which is captive in the human body, to achieve knowledge, gnosis, of its Lightworld origin. At the end of the soul's imprisoned life here on earth it must ascend home to the Light.

Human beings, of both genders, are divided into three forces: soul, spirit and body. The two upper elements are understood as female, sisters, who merge at the body's death to rise as one into the Lightworld--the body being of no further account. A pervasive gender balance reigns in Mandaean symbolism, so that the direction right, light, and gold are male, while the direction left, darkness/ earth, and silver are female. Imitating its Lightworld models and abhorring asceticism, Mandaeism advocates marriage and fertility. Early on, this view caused friction with Christian ascetic ideals.

Even John the Baptist, the primary Mandaean prophet and renewer of the religion, was married. Mandaeans practice repeated baptism in running, fresh water (yardna), for water is the form by which the Lightworld manifests itself on the earth. So, Mandaean baptism does not imply an initiation, and is unlike, for instance, Christian forms of baptism. Complex rituals for the living and the dead, vast mythologies and extensive commentaries on rituals continue to sustain the religion, which possesses an enormous literature and has remained remarkably consistent for nearly two thousand years. Dependent on texts meticulously copied throughout the ages in Mandaic, the religion's own, Eastern Aramaic language, Mandaeism is hierarchical, with priests as leaders in matters religious, legal and communal. Learned lay people, yalufas, are ritual helpers, teachers and mediators situated between priests and the regular lay population. Today, between twenty and thirty priests exist in Baghdad, at least three in Ahwaz, Iran, while two recently emigrated priests serve the Australian congregation in New South Wales. The North American continent still has no priests, but Mandaeans here are now working to obtain a priest from Iraq, so that the communities on the North American continent might achieve a spiritual center in the traditional sense.